Rations.
You basically exchange coins for a sub-resource at an exchange rate of 3:5.
What if you skipped the proxy and when you use rations (such as when you take the Undertake a perilous journey or Make Camp move) you pay coins directly to represent the cost of rations?
That way you don’t need to manage a sub-resource, you just pay a direct cost.
You imply at the table that when you find coins you sometimes also find stuff to eat and/or you forage as you travel and resupply whenever you can.
For sake of simplicity, 1 coin / ration.
What about Weight? You’re often more limited by what you can carry than by what you can afford.
Jeremy Strandberg Yeah, I don’t really worry about Weight. We just narratively handwave it; “Hmm, you want to carry him on your shoulders? Aren’t you already wearing a full plate and a bag full of dungeon gear?”
I feel like this would take the punch out of using rations during a perilous journey. Stocking up on rations before they leave means they spend less money on other equipment like weapons and adventuring gear. Also it would kill the trope of coming out of a dungeon with a pile of gold but wondering if you will starve to death trying to make it back to town with a bag full of wealth.
Well it certainly shifts the concept; overall it would do the same : you need to make sure to keep some pocket change if you don’t want to run out of supplies while on the run.
The latter is true though. Can’t PC eat gold coins? lol
I feel like I handout rations as loot enough to not worry if this would change the trope; in the end, denizens of dungeons have to also eat.
I think I prefer handling this the other way around and bring up a scene where I ask the PC : “So, you manage to find enough food in that dungeon to make it back to town. Describe what gross foodstuff you needed to rely on.”
For Rations (and same principle applies to Weight for me), I feel like the purpose is to bring to the table a fun scene and that only the end result is fun, not the “going there”. When the group has plenty of food, I feel there’s no need to account for it; it’s just number counting and bookkeeping (I hate doing my taxes so don’t bring this to my table!). And it’s only when they don’t have enough anymore that it’s starting to be fun.
Yeah, I wouldn’t want to change it to “eat gold” move unless the campaign is not really interested in handling food. For example, mostly city adventure or travelling in a plentiful land where you need to spend X gold for the stuff you will use to prepare food (so you gather all the plants to eat, but need like mortar and pestle, matches etc.)
I also like the players having “money sinks” where they have to spend X gold to achieve Y, as this makes the gold feel more valuable.
Then for those who like to manage provisions, I ask you this :
Why aren’t rations using the same principle as Ammo?
In reality, rations really has 3 defined states : Plenty, Running Low, out of
That’s an interesting take on it. Personally, I don’t know why you wouldn’t do it this way. However, I am somewhat partial to my old approach of using dice to keep track of stuff (as explained here: http://level27geek.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-uncertainty-principle.html)
But I can see myself changing to the ammo mode for my upcoming campaign where wilderness travel and food are not that important.
level27geek.blogspot.com – The Supply Uncertainty Principle
Rations as the “same principle as Ammo” is hard to picture. The important thing about how ammo works isn’t solely that it abstracts ammo. The point of it is that, during a volley, you may have to make a choice between three bad things, one of which is reducing ammo. When making camp, what are the alternative things that you can choose instead of “reduce rations”?
Lester Ward it’d require some sort of change or roll to Make Camp, for sure.
A while back, i took a stab at consolidating bandages, rations, and adventuring gear into an Ammo-like resource called Supplies. I’ve never actually used this in play, because I like the scarcity-based decisions that Load and whatnot requires. But maybe someone else will find it useful?
docs.google.com – Gear, Make Camp, Succor
This isn’t exactly the topic you brought up but have you read Perilous Wilds? It has rules on scavenging for food and contains a compendium class that let’s you eat monsters.